Sunday, February 2, 2014

The first cell phone message I opened last Thursday was from my auto insurance company. It read: The next payment of your auto policy is scheduled for 2/08/2014. On that date we will debit $385.37 from your account. W H A T ? ? ? I told myself there must be a mistake. Perhaps a new employee who was not familiar with the top line of the keyboard hit a wrong key. But no, somewhere in my mind I just knew that this bad money news was real...it must be...because this news had my name and email address all over it, and nowadays typographical errors related to money, in anyone's favor especially mine, are as rare as a blizzard in July. And why is that? Because I was born with Saturn squaring my Jupiter.

Yes this is an awful way to look at life especially in this age of you can create your own reality. I like the half full outlook on life, but after a lifetime of experiencing unexpected windfalls that would inevitably be thwarted by the boss of no free lunch -Saturn, I'm just programmed to expect the other shoe to drop. Saturn will show no mercy if he deems that you owe him, and he will announce it to the entire universe that you owe him. He'll even distribute directions to your home address.

So this is how I looked when I checked my messages...

Inside I felt like this...

So I took to making calls to, you guessed it, rival insurance companies to find out why such insured abuse. I won't mention their names because I certainly don't want any of them to benefit from clicks tracked from the stalking eye of the Google robot. But without going into detail, I was given reasons for the premium increases and I was not happy with them.

Some hope for a solution for came from a girlfriend whose father was a deceased US veteran. She told me that her insurance company was well known provider of insurance for veterans. What she didn't know though, was that the veteran must have been insured by insurance company she was referring to.

"It doesn't matter if your father is deceased or that he served in the air force way back in WWII," she said confidently. After she said that I began to feel hopeful, however given my money karma I could feel myself wisely holding back the half full outlook on my situation. "I'm sure her situation is different than mine and would not apply to me," I told myself. This half full reaction comes from experience. I've been programed from an early age not to expect much. It wasn't until I would have my own children that I would be able to piece together how my karma worked and why I looked at life this way. It took many phone conversations and digging through old family documents to get some clarity about why I react to life in the way I do.

My father was an alcoholic. He was born to a financially upwardly mobile couple who were madly in love with each other. He was an only child and was showered with everything a child could ask for. I know this from old pictures of him when he was baby. Christmas photos showed him being pushed in the latest style pram by his glamorous mother, all wrapped up in genuine fur blankets. Later photos depicted still more privilege as birthday after birthday came and went. FAO Schwartz type toy cars were the norm for my dad.

Unfortunately, for all the material benefits they could not halt the ignorant behavior of his parents. From what I understand, they both drank. It was just a way of life. The worst part is that they encouraged drinking and even smoking in their one and only darling son. His experience rivals Drew Barrymore's who started drinking alcohol when she was 6 years old. My dad, from what I was told, was encouraged to sip a "few" and take a puff even younger than that. In fact I myself was encouraged to take a puff at 7 years old. In my father's day and age this kind of behavior was a form of entertainment for the adults, but certainly shocking for this this day and age, especially with all the messages flooding the media 24/7 addressing the perils of addiction and child abuse.

My father went on to marry my mother when they were both 21 years old. They were childhood sweethearts and grew up together in the same neighborhood, although my mother was, by comparison, financially deprived. She may have been deprived of material comforts but she had an abundance of a supportive and loving siblings. Something my father never had.

Dad's uncle managed a local airport and taught him how to fly a plane.

When the war began he went into the air force and was awarded medals for his impressive service.

Throughout history, war has exacted its toll on countless soldiers - my father was one of them. While I was growing up life was a series of moving from place to place because my father could never hold a job. Drinking was his demon and the demon always came first. The demon had to be fed and it drank alcohol. He drank away all the money my mother worked hard to make to help support us. The demon eventually killed my father when he was 50 years old. I didn't really mourn his passing - I was glad the demon was dead. It has taken me many years to understand that the demon was never my father. It was alcohol. And I've forgiven him. Years of resentment, anger and hate was replaced by love and compassion for that beautiful innocent baby in the magnificent pram who never really had a chance to grow into a man.

It is now 2014, and that damned $385.37 premium has driven me to pull out a 94 year old leather box in my hall closet that contains my father's honorable discharge and the history of his life in hundreds of black and white photographs courtesy of Kodak. What I was looking for was his social security number. The insurance company needed it to find out if he was an insured by them. I held my breath as I waited for the voice on the other end of the phone to give me the answer. "No record of him," she said. I expected as much. But secretly I felt, or hoped, that it was no coincidence that I was going to all this trouble taking this trip down memory lane. It was as if my dad was trying to help me in some small way...in a way that he never could do when he was feeding the demon when I was little, and when my mom worked so hard to feed three little girls. Then the woman on the phone went that extra mile and referred me to another insurance company that she said, gave discounts to veterans...even if they were almost 100 years old. With the demon dead and gone, my father's spirit is now sober and alive and finally able to help his daughter. I'm ecstatic not just because of the financial benefit, but I believe that this was his way to let me know that he can now rest in peace knowing he is loved and forgiven. I'm very proud of him.

I pray for the dead. It is just something I do. I believe that their spirits live on to ascend to wherever it is they must karmic(ly) ascend to. I believe in praying for them because it helps them, because just like us, sometimes they get stuck. I believe my father has moved on to wherever he is suppose to move on to. Just like me. I will continue to pray for him and them.